Lenore Zann, a member of the Nova Scotia legislature said the picture was taken from an episode in the Showtime series The L Word, a drama series portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, straight and transgender people and their friends.

Ms. Zann appeared topless in one episode that was shot in 2008, in which she played a small part in a prison shower scene.

The tweet came from a 17-year-old who says he didn’t mean the social media message to be cruel or bullying.

It was just meant to be funny and got out of hand I guess,’ he said. But ‘she was on that show voluntarily and she knew that image was out there and I don’t think I said anything mean about her.